The New Chauffeur
by Marie Antoinette of Navarre
Summary: Downton is in need of a new chauffeur and Edith and Branson decide to teach Cora, Sybil and Matthew how to drive. But as the journey goes on, things get complicated. Robert and Mary are with them every step of the way, could they become the next chauffeur
1. Cora

The three of them, Cora, Sybil and Matthew, stood there and stared at the car. It seemed like such a foreign object – almost alien. When Sybil and Matthew had finally convinced Cora to tag along, she never intended to be the first one to try it at the wheel. She swallowed. "You know what, I don't feel so good." she lied and retreated.

Both Matthew and Sybil grabbed each of her arms and said, "You're not getting out of this one."

Cora swallowed again. At least Sybil could start the thing but Cora had no clue what to do once she was inside the block on four wheels. And Matthew – at least he knew how to ride a bike. Cora didn't even know that!

"If I get in that..._thing_ I'll end up not just killing myself but killing the rest of you." she stated strongly. "And did I mention that I don't feel very well?" she said again and headed back home where she was safe. She walked with her head still facing Matthew and Sybil, and before she knew it, she had two hands wrapped around wrists.

"Where do you think you're going?" Robert asked. "You don't think you'll get out of this one do you? It took Matthew and Sybil all day to convince you to even get in the thing without a proper chauffeur. We wouldn't want to disappoint them do we?" he said smiling at his wife of at least thirty years. "And you know how Sybil gets when she's in a bad mood. She was worse than you when you got mood-swings."

"I'll probably crash the thing." Cora replied, looking back at the car.

"Well, you're lucky we're not in London – there's too many things to crash into." a distant voice said. It was Mary. "Oh come now, I wasn't going to let my fiancée go through with this on his own. And besides, it'll be hilarious to see you and Sybil trying to drive the strange thing." she said to her mother, and then went over to Matthew and kissed him.

"See – Mary's excited. You should be, too." Robert whispered in his wife's ears, his hands moving away from her wrists to her waist. He kissed Cora on the forehead and ran to the car. "I know I am." he said waving his hat in the air. He got into the vehicle and closed the door.

Cora huffed, her shoulders dropping. She found the courage to open the front door of the car and sit at the wheel. _Breath,_ she thought. _This is going to be a long day..._

* * *

><p>Branson and Edith are teaching Cora how to drive. Things aren't going well.<p>

She's not familiar with anything outside of Downton, Crawley House and Levinson House. Mary looks at her blankly and Robert just sticks up his thumbs and smiles with no confidence at all. But at least Cora is trying. So what if she bumped into a few trees, or accidentally reversed back into Downton, almost running Carson over, and so what if she's not very good. It wasn't her idea to learn how to drive anyway.

"Is it someone else's turn yet? I'm sick of this stupid car already. We've been driving for miles it seems." Cora groaned.

All the faces except from Cora's looked at each other. Robert looked at Edith and then at Matthew and then at Branson and Mary. "Darling, you do know we're not even out of Downton grounds yet."

Cora groaned again, and then hit her head off the wheel.

"Darling, I don't think you should—" Robert said worried about his beloved wife.

Cora hit her head off the wheel again.

"Mama, maybe you should stop—" Edith began to say.

Another hit off the wheel.

"Cora." Robert said. She ignored him and moaned some more. "Cora." he repeated. She continued to ignore her husband. "Cora!" Robert shouted for her attention.

Cora jumped and accidentally pushed down on the one of the paddles. They were moving forward now and they were moving incredibly fast – too fast for a beginner. The whole Crawley family screamed. Mary and Matthew held each other and hoped not to die, Edith began to say her goodbyes to everyone. And Branson was yelling something at Cora, but in too much of a panic and not knowing what to do, she pushed down harder. They were headed for a tree now. They screamed louder.

"We're going to die!" Edith said.

"The brakes, the brakes," Branson kept repeating. "Push on the BRAKES!" he yelled in her face.

Getting closer and closer to the tree, everyone believed they were going to die. And with Cora at the wheel, they were sure they were going to die.


	2. Sybil

Okay. Cora's first attempt was a failure and went down hill – literally! Just before they hit the tree, Cora turned the wheel. And everyone thought that she had just saved their lives but now they were headed down a real hill she really didn't know what she was doing. At one point the car actually became totally airborne after Cora drove off a hill. Things were okay though. She managed to find the brakes and pushed down hard. There was maybe a few flat tyres and maybe a few bumps on heads but there really wasn't much damage at all.

And after Branson had replaced the flat wheels, he dragged Cora out of the driver's seat and pushed her to the back. It was Sybil's turn now.

Sybil, determined and brave, placed both hands on the wheel and with her husband and sister guiding her through this she thought they could actually get somewhere. She could have been wrong. They had gotten past the grounds of Downton and now were heading through the village.

"At least Sybil got past Downton grounds." Robert mocked his wife who was squashed between him and Matthew. Robert grinned.

"Yeah well..." Cora started. It was clear she didn't know the end of that sentence. "I didn't even want to learn how to drive in the first place. It was a stupid idea." she muttered.

They were in the village now and the nerves began to kick in for Sybil. She thought about turning around but that would mean she was giving up. She didn't want that. There's only so much ground you can cover in the village, and the passengers in the back seats soon realised that Sybil was leading them out of the village and into foreign grounds.

"I don't think it's a good idea to go somewhere we really aren't familiar with." Cora said worried. She looked at her husband. He shrugged. She slumped back into the seat. No one was taking any notice of her at all – not even Mary or Edith who had always fought for her attention as children.

They end up stranded and driving on not a road but piles of mud that created the pathway.

"Great." Mary said bitterly. "We're lost."

"We're not lost." Edith bickered hastily. She looked at all the faces around her – her mother, her father, her sister and her soon-to-be brother-in-law. Edith realised that they were all looking at her, too, each one of them a massive question-mark floating above their heads. "Okay, yes. Mary we're lost. You're right." she finally confessed.

"Maybe we should turn around? Or at least—" Cora began to say before the car went over a bump and threw her forward into Matthew. She giggled, a little embarrassed. He smiled back at her.

"Forget that – maybe we should just stop." Robert utters and then looked at his wife sitting next to him. "You were right – this was a bad idea. We should have never agreed to teach you, Matthew or Sybil how to drive no matter how bad we want a new chauffeur. We'll just have Branson continued his part as the chauffeur. Or Edith—" Another bump on the muddy road. Like Cora he fell into Matthew's arms. Things couldn't get more awkward.

"No, no. everything will be fine. We just need to find some proper land and we'll be on our merry way back to Downton." Branson assured.

"Sybil stop the car." Mary demanded.

"No. Just turn around." Matthew said with a lot more tolerance in his voice.

"I don't know how!" Sybil squealed, gripping the wheel tighter with her fingers. "_I don't know how!_"

"What, how to stop or how to turn around?" Edith asked her sister.

"B_oth!_"

Cora slapped her forehead. "Of course! She knows how to start the ting but doesn't know to stop it or turn it around – that makes so mush sense!" she muttered sarcastically.

"Just change gear and turn the wheel to turn around. Or just push on the brakes." Edith suggested. "It's easy." It was easy for her say because she'd been at the wheel before. Yes, Sybil knew how to start the engine but she never thought about how to stop it.

Sybil kicked down hard on anything that would move beneath her feet. She panicked. Nothing happened. They were still driving forward and still moving. So, as her sister had advised her to do before, Sybil changed gear and turned the wheel forcefully. The car shifted ninety degrees and the car seemed like it was falling.

That's because it was!

"What's happening—" Robert shouted but before her could finish, his body pushed into the left side of the car, his face squished against the window. As his body shifted to the left, the car shifted with him. Cora moved as well and fell into his body and Mary into Cora's. Edith sat on the other said of the car did the same but fell into Matthew.

"What. Has. Just. Happened?" Cora gritted her teeth.

They fell into a ditch, that was what had happened.


	3. Complication

So, the car fell into a ditch and they were stuck there for awhile.

The whole family had taken the time to get themselves out from inside the vehicle – Matthew managed to get out first; he helped Edith out and soon after, the rest of the family followed, Lord and Lady Grantham the last ones to get out. Cora had insisted they get Sybil out – they had forgotten how heavily pregnant she was but Sybil had forced her way to the wheel.

Each of the women sat on stones that seemed to grow from within the mud piles that made the path. But Matthew, Robert and Branson stood around – Branson helping his pregnant wife, Matthew tending to his fiancée and cousin and Robert making sure Cora didn't hurt herself; she was – what? – fifty-odd years old. She could fall over any minute.

"What are we going to do now?" Sybil moaned to her husband. "I crashed the car and we can't go anywhere without it. What are we going to do, Branson? What are we going to do?" The pregnancy hormones were starting to kick. One minute she'd be fine and the next she'd be either crying or very angry.

"You didn't crash the car – you just drove it into a ditch." Edith said trying to make her sister feel better. It wasn't working. Edith rose from her little stone and stepped carefully closer to the car in the ditch. "I mean, it's fine – not a scratch on the thing. If only we could just pulled it out somehow and then maybe we could go home."

Mary rolled her eyes. "What are we going to pull the car out with? Our hands? It's impossible." Sybil wept again to herself. "And there's really no point in moaning. It's not going to get us out of here."

"What are you saying – we walk our way out of here? In the mud?" Cora said, her face twisting at the peculiar idea.

"Yes." Mary said. Everyone gasped at the thought. How were they supposed to do that? They were a aristocratic family with a lot of money; they never walked anywhere in their lives; they would have taken the car. That would be as if they had one.

Robert looked at the still car in the hole in the ground. "I guess it's the only thing we can do." He looked at Branson. "Which way did we come from?" Branson pointed his finger. Robert nodded and took his wife's hand and helped her up. He began walking, his hand dragging Cora along with him.

Mary linked arms with Matthew and they soon copied Lord and Lady Grantham. Edith, on the other hand, helped Branson with helping Sybil get to her feet.

"Who's idea was it to walk all the way to Downton?" Cora asked, eyeing her eldest daughter. "'Oh it's not far from home. Maybe a few miles, that's all'" Lady Grantham continued to mock Mary. But it seemed like they had been walking for days on end, no way to know whether they're going the right way or not.

"Look – it seemed like a good idea before." Mary snapped at her mother in defence, her hands on hips. But her irritation soon slipped. Her mother was right. They should have stayed back where the car buried itself in the ditch. "What are we going to do?" she groaned. "My feet are aching, I'm so tired and my skirt is ruined. Anna will never be able to get these off." she said looking down at the mud stains on the bottom of her skirt.

"Oh, my dear. We're going to make it back home. Don't worry."

"But what if something happens?" Cora asked her husband. He turned her way.

"What if we're actually going the wrong way and we're actually getting further away from where we supposed to be headed?" Edith asked her father before he could answer her mother's question.

"What if die of starvation or dehydration?" Mary demanded melodramatically. Robert turned to face his daughter.

"What if—" Cora started but Robert put a finger over her lips.

"I don't know. To answer your first question – we can't know whether or not something will happen"—he looked at his two daughters—"and I highly doubt that we'll die of starvation or dehydration and I'm sure we're going the right way. OKAY?"

Sybil screamed.

All faces darted towards her direction. Robert ran from Cora's side to his daughter. "Whatever is the matter? Why did you scream?"

Sybil was being half carried by Branson. She looked at her father and then at her husband. "It wasn't me who screamed." she replied, staring at her husband. "It was Tom."

Robert scratched his head. "I'm confused. It came from this direction."

"That would be me." Branson said smiling uncomfortably.

"But I'm sure it was Sybil."

"Nope. It was me." he said again.

Robert scratched his head some more. "But it sounded like a woman."

Branson nodded. "Me again."

"Well then – why did _you_ scream?" Cora asked her son-in-law. Robert had hardly noticed her coming over.

Branson didn't answer but instead looked at his wife. "My water just broke." Sybil answered shyly.


End file.
